The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 3 – Steve Deace

Episode 3: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

Dr. Jeff’s interview with Steve Deace traces how a life-changing encounter with Christ reshaped Deace’s family life, sense of accountability, and public calling, leading him to subject his politics and cultural commentary fully to a biblical worldview while urging Christians to reject fear and embrace bold, honest engagement with the culture. He emphasizes that Christians must ground their worldview in Scripture, integrate truth with relational honesty, and stand firm despite name-calling or cultural pressure. When the shouting stops, biblical truth still offers the only sufficient answers to who we are, what’s wrong with the world, and what can be done about it.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:02):
Hey everyone, it’s Dr. Jef. On the Dr. Jeff Show, I interview major thought leaders in all different fields to demonstrate that worldview changes everything. On this episode, I interview Steve Deace. He’s a talk show host. He dives into today’s issues fearlessly and he’s quickly become a powerful national voice fighting against the mainstream media narrative, big tech censorship through Blaze TV.

Christians who get involved are facing growing attacks. They are called names, they face shaming, they’re getting canceled. And the big question is, what are we supposed to do now? If you’re wondering that, then I think you’ll find this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show, one of the most bracing bits of time that you could invest. Hey, Steve Deace. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show.

Steve Deace (00:59):
Thanks for having me. Yeah, it’s a pleasure. Of course, I’m familiar with the work of Summit Ministries. I’ve encountered some of your past students in my line of work over the years, so thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:09):
Yeah, perfect. Well, I’m really looking forward to our conversation because your story is amazing. You’ve become an influential voice, you’re bringing common sense and boldness. My wife Stephanie and I were just watching one of your shows last night and you’ve brought them into the cultural conversation at the craziest time in my 55 years. So a lot of your story though a lot of people may not pick this up on the shows that you do, but a lot of your story, Steve, goes back to 2003 and you had a life-changing experience at a promisekeeper’s event that set the whole trajectory of your life in motion. I’d love to just dive right in with that story.

Steve Deace (01:51):
Sure. I was born to a 15-year-old mom. Actually, today is her birthday, that we are recording this, but I was born to a 15-year-old mom who got pregnant from a high school senior boyfriend of some means. She was considered poor white trash at the time and his parents wanted her to get an abortion. It was illegal at the time, but when you were of means you could make something happen in those days. She wasn’t sure she could bring herself to do it.

So she found out she was pregnant with me at Christmas and then about a month later, Roe v. Wade happens, and now she has a choice to do it safe, legal, and rare, so to speak. And in the end, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it and ends up becoming a single mom and giving birth to me when she’s 15 years old in July.

(02:46):
I was on ADC food stamps as a kid. I remember eating government cheese. I remember doing reduced lunches. She ended up marrying a young man out of the Navy when I was about three, four years old. And there were a lot of good things about him. It’s where I get my last name. He taught me a lot about work ethic and things of that nature, but he also came from a very abusive background.

His father was an alcoholic and was very physically and emotionally abusive to him. And so at times when he would abuse marijuana or alcohol, he would treat us that way as well. In my family, we had very high highs. Every amusement park you can imagine. And we’ve had very low lows. And so it’s out of this background that I’m now doing talk radio. In Des Moines, Iowa, I’m doing sports talk radio actually.

(03:41):
But the news talk station here in town, WHO is grooming me to eventually take over the news talk station. And we had our first child in 2001 and bringing her home made me just this overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. This kid has no chance with me as a dad. I didn’t have the greatest model. And after a while, I go to my wife and I’m like, “This is going to sound weird coming from me, and I think we’re fine, but maybe Hillary Clinton’s right about this one. It’s going to take a village to raise this kid. We maybe need to look at joining a church.”

And Amy was like, “Well, I kind of was thinking that way for a long time. I just didn’t have the guts to say something to you about it. So I’m kind of glad you said something to me.” And because of the fact I was involved in political circles in high school and college and was very politically aware, I kind of knew, I guess, who we would say the liberal denominations were.

(04:34):
I didn’t know why they were liberal theologically. I just knew they were liberal politically. And so anybody that was involved in the National Council of Churches, I just eliminated all of those churches in my town. I went to my sports talk audience and asked them for suggestions of churches that didn’t belong to these left wing organizations. I got several examples and I tried to interview as many of the pastors as I could. I asked them all this classic gotcha question.

So if only people that believe in Jesus go to heaven, what about the guy in the Aboriginal forest of Australia who a missionary never reached and he died saving a bus full of kids? Is he in hell right now? I wanted to know what everybody’s answer was. And one pastor said to me, he goes, “I trust a God who would spare not even his own son on my behalf to deal justly with such a unique occurrence.” Wow.

(05:26):
Such a good answer that we started going to that church and my wife took it right away. I was very standoffish and after a few months they started running an ad for Promise Keepers that they were going to go to Kansas City for Promise Keepers that September. And I just had this overwhelming feeling that no matter what else was going on on planet Earth on September 18th, 2003, I had to be at Kemper Arena in Kansas City for this event.

Dr. Jeff Myers (05:54):
Yeah. Yeah. Now for our younger viewers, Steve, Promise Keepers was from 1993 into the 2000s was the call to Christian manhood, to fatherhood, to being godly men. And they met in arenas all over the United States of America. And so you went to the one at Kemper Arena, Kansas City, and what happened?

Steve Deace (06:19):
It changed my life. I didn’t want to go. The week of the event, I tried to come up with a million excuses not to go. My wife finally planted me in the car, dropped me off at the drop off point and just drove off and said, “See you in a few days.” And so I get on the bus and I’ve got the universal dude symbol for don’t talk to me. I got my headphones in, that’s before earbuds, kids. Okay.

I’m kind of known now because my sports talk show is popular and a guy is sitting in the row ahead of me on the bus to Kansas City and he keeps looking at me. I can tell he wants to talk to me, but I keep doing the diss. I’m not making eye contact. I don’t want to talk to him. Finally taps me on the knee and he goes, “I don’t know why, but I think I need to tell you this.”

(06:56):
And he starts telling me his life story and it’s a lot of the same struggles that I had been having in my own life. And at first it was weird, but by the time we got to Kansas City, I mean, we were like brothers. We’re still friends to this day. And we get to the arena and they start playing the music and stuff and I’m watching guys hold hands and I’m like, no, no, not doing this. Okay.

And then the first speaker gets up and it’s a guy named Joe White and he starts giving this presentation with three crosses on the stage and he starts talking about who the other two guys on this stage were. And I’m listening to this message and he talks about the damage that fathers do to their sons when they either don’t hold them accountable or affirm them at the exact same time. I’m looking around this arena, there’s 10, 12, 13,000 guys in here and it’s like this entire message was scheduled just for me. For you.

(07:49):
And at the end he takes an altar call and I’m like, “Man, altar calls are really for only really bad Pentecostal television. I’m not answering this.” And before I know it, and I was like 400 pounds back then, I was a really large dude. Before I know it, next thing I know I’m out of the chair and I’m face down on the concrete floor at Kemper Arena answering this altar call and my wife would tell you ever since then this is her second marriage. It just was the guy of the same name both times. It has not been perfect. I’ve made plenty of mistakes. I make plenty of mistakes, but here’s what it has been. It’s been different.

Dr. Jeff Myers (08:31):
What’s that look like? I mean, because people say I’m different and then you watch it for a little bit and you’re like, “You may feel different, but you don’t treat people differently. You still interact in the office in the same way.” What are some of the things that your wife would, oh, this puts you on the spot. What would she say the difference really is?

Steve Deace (08:50):
I think that what she would say is a level of accountability. When I’ve lost my temper or I’ve done something wrong, if I’ve been cross, if I’ve gone outside the bounds, the rules of engagement of a typical argument with my wife, he and my children, they’re all teenagers now, but when they were young, I mean, they would see me get on a knee and ask for their apology. I was wrong. That’s not who God has called me to be. I was wrong. Will you forgive me?

I think there’s been a level of accountability, self-awareness, patience that I am not naturally gifted with by any stretch. I played sports all my life and I thought the F-bomb was my name until about the seventh grade. I mean, I was dog cussed all the time and so to tolerate other people’s mistakes, mine were never tolerated ever.

(09:53):
So I always just assumed I had to be perfect at everything and to tolerate mistakes, room to make their own mistakes. I mean, these are all things that on my own I just was not modeled and I am not equipped to do or to be. And thankfully my father in heaven filled the gap that an earthly father left. But again, I’m not perfect. Here’s what I try to do.

(10:27):
I try to keep my eye on the end goal. And the end goal for me is, Jeff, if at the end when they put me in the ground, if my children would come to my funeral and say about me as my children, what Paul said to Timothy, who was his spiritual child at the end of his race, I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith.

If my kids can say, “Man, I saw the old man. I saw him with his knickers down, figuratively and literally. I saw him when he showed his rear end. I saw him when he was not everything he pretended to be, but I saw him when he was for real at the exact same time. I knew him better than all of you. You guys know a public image. I knew Steve Deace, not a public image, the real guy.”

(11:11):
And I can sit here and tell you that despite all those moments, this line had some ups and downs, had some jagged edges to it. But here at the end of this line, I can tell you that the old man, he fought the good fight, he finished the race, he kept the faith. If my children will say that about me on my grave, then I am confident that the next words I will hear when I wake up will be well done, good and faithful servant.

I try to stay, I’m not focused on the journey. I’m focused on the destination, on the end game. When I fall into sin, Jeff, when I lose my place, it’s because I’m focused on what’s going on right here and now. I’m focused on the journey. I lose my contentment. I get bored, right? I get bored with my wife.

(11:54):
We’ve been married for 25 years. I get bored with the same house. I’ve lived in it for 15 years. I get bored with the same job. I’ve done it for how many years, right? I lose contentment when I’m focused on the journey. What brings me back into perspective and gets me back on the narrow road is when I put my mind back on the actual destination, on the end game.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:12):
So when you start, you start from God’s perspective and look back over everything else, then that gives you the perspective for those trials, for the difficult situations, for those situations where you think, “Man, I was my own worst enemy in this situation.” By the way, Paul’s words to Timothy, if anybody who’s watching this or listening to this, just get out your Bible and read 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. It is an epistle for our times for what God’s called us to do for the difficulty of the situations that we face, but also for how to live the good life.

So man, what a great story. But speaking of fighting the good fight, you daily do battle and a lot of it’s what’s going on in the culture, what’s going on in the political realm. I just have to ask you because all the students I work with at Summit Ministries, they come in, what they have heard is that Jesus has nothing to do with politics.

(13:25):
Christians don’t get involved in this stuff. If they do, they’re Christian nationalists or they’re dominionists or whatever. They should feel ashamed about this. They should repent of this. I’m just curious because you’re in this every single day. I mean, how do you grapple with that?

Steve Deace (13:48):
One of my favorite movies when I was a little kid was War Games with Matthew Broderick and it’s a cautionary tale about the nuclear war history of the 1980s, right?

Dr. Jeff Myers (14:00):
Okay. Stop right there real quick. I did show that to my children. I was horrified at how bad the language was that I didn’t remember. So just parental warning. Yes. Okay.

Steve Deace (14:12):
A lot of those movies in the 80s that our parents let us watch were like that. Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (14:15):
They were like that.

Steve Deace (14:16):
They ended up creating the PG-13 rating later in the 80s. Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (14:19):
Yes.

Steve Deace (14:20):
But the tagline of the film, the moral of the film is, the only way to win the game is not to play. And I think the reason we struggle, whether it’s politics or, pick any other industry or any other enterprise, this side of heaven, the reason we struggle with, “How do I reconcile blank with my belief system?” is because we’re trying to reconcile blank with my belief system.

The only way to win the game is not to play. I don’t try to reconcile my faith with how to be politically effective. I try instead to make political effectiveness accountable to my faith. I don’t have to reconcile. They’re not co-equal branches of worldview. They’re not a symbiotic relationship.

(15:15):
They’re not hero Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord your God has one. And then I apply that same word for oneness in the Shema to my political activism and my faith. My faith is up here. Everything else is below it. And so whatever is below has to reconcile with what is above. So I don’t try to reconcile those things.

For me, now what I’m about to say is not easy. It’s not easy, but it’s simple. And that is if this abides with my faith, if I’m confident it does, my answer is yes. If I’m confident it does not, my answer is no. If I’m not sure I don’t have an answer, that’s it. My master plan. That’s how I approach whether to vote, who to vote for. There’s been times, frankly, there’s been times I didn’t think either people run it, were worthy of my vote.

(16:07):
So I didn’t vote for them. I don’t do humanistic calculations that not voting for this is actually a vote for that because if that’s the case, then if I were to vote for that, then I voted for it twice. It doesn’t make any, I don’t do any of that utilitarian garbage. It’s really simple to me.

If I can give my audience a justification for why I’m doing something that I’m not ashamed of and that if this was the last thing I said before God called me home and the mic went off, would I feel like I could whoop my savior in the eye and justify why I just used this platform you gave me to say that, then I’m okay. Whether you like it or don’t, I really don’t.

My staff will tell you we spend, I don’t want to say zero because we’re a human being, but the percentage of time we spend wondering how people will receive what we think, whether we’ll be liked, how far to push something, it is in the single digits as opposed to the amount of time we spend with, is this true? Can we be honest about this? Can we reconcile this? Can we justify this? Et cetera.

Dr. Jeff Myers (17:08):
Yeah. As I’m listening to that, Steve, I love that idea of your politics being accountable to your faith. And I’m thinking of a lot of my students who’ve gone into situations where they’re in the military or they are in business or they are in academia. I’ve got lots of students who are professors and PhD programs. Faculty meetings are horrible in this.

I mean, if you say, “I’m just going to speak honestly in these situations,” it’s pretty tough to be frank. I mean, that’s really difficult. And so I could kind of see somebody saying, “Well, yeah, of course Steve Deace can do this because he has a show and he can say whatever he wants and all of that. But when I’m around the water cooler at work, it doesn’t work like that.”

Steve Deace (18:00):
Sure. I get this a lot. Yeah. I have had my career threatened. I can’t tell you how many times. How many times? Especially because I won’t conform to paradigms. I don’t believe in flawed binary choices. I don’t believe in the lesser of two evils because it’s a fallacy. Everything is the lesser of evils. Could my wife marry a better looking, more righteous man? Yeah, so I’m the lesser of two evils. Could the Blaze find a better host? Sure. There’s seven billion people on planet earth so they employed the lesser of two evils.

Everything’s the lesser of evils, therefore nothing is because we’re all evil, right? That’s why we need a savior. So because I don’t buy into these kinds of fallacies, I’ve had my career threatened umpteen times from both Republicans and Democrats. This past year, I was one of the very first people to really call horsepucky on these doomsday models when I examined them at places like Imperial College and the University of Washington’s IHME models.

(18:59):
I looked at their math, I looked at their algorithms, I looked at their data logic and conclusions. It was clear they did not add up at best they were guessing. At worst it was something, pardon the pun, nefarious. And if I’m wrong about that, brother, and this is supposedly like the worst global pandemic ever. If I’m wrong about that, if I go on the air one day and my data is not right and it costs somebody their life, my career is over. I’m never doing this again.

So the idea that I’m just insulated from all of this kind of scrutiny is just not accurate. I mean, because I’m leading with a biblical worldview, because I challenge conventional wisdoms all the time, literally any moment I color outside the lines and get a fact wrong, it could be, it was a nice run, Steve, have a nice life.

(19:47):
So I don’t have much sympathy for that. I’m on a much bigger stage than your water cooler. I’ve had a lot of pastors tell me over the years, “Well, my people come to me and they want to know why they don’t hear from me what you say on your show.” And I’m like, “On where you’re at, you’re in a tax deductible shelter.” I mean, I’m not. I’m in a for-profit capitalistic venture. I’ve got to reach a much broader audience with a narrow message than you do.

And often the people come to you. They often come to you. I’m lost. I lost a loved one. I’m in despair. I don’t know where else to go, so I’ll come to you. I’ve actually got to go out and find other people and then bring them in.” So no, I really don’t have any sympathy. I think those are rationalizations for not having any kind of courage, of conviction. That’s what I think.

Dr. Jeff Myers (20:34):
Yeah, that’s bracing. Man, I love that. And when you mention the pastors and the churches, that can be a sore spot as well. I mean, George Barna, the pollster, said that only 19% of church-going Christians have a biblical worldview. And then he asked, “Pastors, do you think the Bible does apply to today’s issues?” 90% of them say yes. And then he asked them, “How many of you have ever brought this up with your congregation?” Only 10% had ever brought it up.

So it’s not a surprise that Christians don’t know how to think biblically, but you talk a lot about this. I call you a biblical worldview nerd because that’s exactly what I am. We were thinking about this kind of thing all of the time, but how do you understand biblical worldview and why is it essential, especially here as we stumble our way into the 21st century?

Steve Deace (21:32):
I define it for my audience as how you see the world and your place in it. I was broken on a human level that day in Kansas City, but what stopped me from being a false convert is that I had to have my mind renewed. I’m just logic based. I didn’t get a lot of emotional affirmation growing up. So I can be pretty vulcan in my approach to things. And so I needed Christianity to win me over logically for it to stick.

And what I found as you read through a Quran, you study other belief systems, what you find is there’s really only one on this planet that has sufficient, and I didn’t say they were nice. I didn’t say they were cozy. I didn’t say they were comfortable. I didn’t even say they’re the answers I wish that they were. I said they were sufficient.

(22:29):
The worldview that has the sufficient answers for why we are the way we are, why the world is the way it is and what can be done about it. The only one is the biblical worldview. Again, those answers aren’t easy, but they do sufficiently answer the three most pertinent questions in life. And so when I got started, I got to go national because of the success I had locally in Iowa and I had a group of businessmen come to me after some of that success where my influence had helped them win some contentious elections.

And they said, “Hey, Rush Limbaugh got started by some investors, took a guy from Sacramento and brought him out to New York and thought they had something and we want to do that with you.” And so when we started trying to sell my show to Syndicators and stuff when we were just getting started around the country, one of the things I would say to them was, “I want our show to do for a biblical worldview what Rush Limbaugh Show did for conservatism where it threw the wall.” And every local radio station said, “Wow, I got to get another guy.”

(23:34):
“I got to get a local guy that does on a local basis what Rush does to tap into that audience.” I mean, Rush found a way to make conservative political ideology, which really isn’t an ideology as much as an observation of history of the things worthy of conserving. He found a way with his talent to make this applicable, cool, chic, pop culture knowledgeable. I wanted to do the exact same thing and approach with a biblical worldview.

And so before I came to the Blaze, I was syndicated by Salem, that’s the largest Christian media company in the country. They would put me on both their conservative talk stations and their Christian talk stations and I didn’t have to change my approach really at all. I think that’s really the key. We’ve heard a lot of the word relevant in the church since I’ve been a Christian, but often I think we are so relevant that we are relative. It’s not just that you relate to me, it’s that I don’t see you relate so well, you’re not any different than me, right? Yes.

(24:40):
To me, relevant is where I can relate to where you are at, but it’s clear that there’s something that’s different from me and you. And it’s not that I’m a better person than you. It’s not that I don’t have the same struggles that you do. I’m like Romans seven incarnate, Jeff. And it really stinks because God has helped me to be pretty knowledgeable about the word of God, which makes Romans seven even worse because I know better.

I know all the answers and yet I fall for the same lies and canards and fall into the same pits anyway and then I want to beat myself up after it because I knew better and I justified it and I rationalized it, but it’s that level of honesty that I think that’s how we relate to people that it’s that, “Hey, here are my struggles and here’s where God both encouraged me and then elevated me. Here’s where I fell short.”

(25:40):
Our kids, now that they’re teenagers, they all know the truth. Their mom and I were not virgins on our wedding night. We were not believers. We lived together before we were married. We weren’t even virgins when we met each other. We’ve made up-teen mistakes. Our kids know that if they ask, don’t ask us the right questions.

My wife does biblical counseling now. She’s finishing her very last semester of Masters at Liberty and then she’s taking it before she starts a job with a therapist company here in Des Moines. And one of the things we’ve told our kids since they’ve gotten older is, hey, now that you want to start asking the serious life questions, make sure you want to know the right answers because mom and dad are going to be really honest with you about those things.

(26:22):
And I think that’s something too that the church is missing. I think we are projecting an image that we cannot keep up rather than projecting Christ and how he’s the one that’s responsible for whatever changes people see in us rather than an image. And so it’s kind of the worst of both worlds.

On one hand, we’re this Pleasant Valley Sunday that we can’t live up to because, what’s going on behind closed doors, humanity, life, struggles. That’s what’s going on. And we don’t want to be honest about that and project that everything’s great when you become a Christian. But then on the other hand, when evil is on the prowl as it is in our culture now, we’re nicer than God and we’re no threat to it whatsoever. And then the people don’t come to us because they feel as if we can’t relate to them.

(27:14):
Kind of rambling here, but let me use one more example of what I mean. Before I got saved, I was a huge horror film buff. I still keep up with the genre when it delves into spiritual themes because I’m fascinated by how the culture addresses those sorts of topics. And about 10 years ago, there’s a genre of horror film called Found Footage and the Blair Witch Project was kind of the first big hit movie like this, kind of a movie within a movie, right? Is it real? Is it not?

About 10 years ago, there was another extremely popular movie in this genre called Paranormal Activity. And the plot of the movie is a young couple shacking up together are haunted by a demon, a real demon like right from hell. And during the course of this film, they start off denying that it’s evil. They start off denying that evil even exists.

(28:04):
And then when they begin to admit that evil exists, they go to academia to get a professor of demonology. They Google it. They go to her dad for some dad advice. They go to all these places in the culture, Jeff, to get all these answers to this evil. Can you guess the one institution they never go to in the entire movie? Church.

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:25):
Never go to church.

Steve Deace (28:26):
The one that actually has the answer and the antidote for the evil that they face, right? And so we’re so busy being relevant to the culture, but when stuff gets real, notice they don’t turn to us. That’s a problem.

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:40):
That’s a problem. Yeah. So the interbiblical worldview, there’s intellectual truth. The answers to the questions that we know people are asking, but there’s also that relational truth, the ability to be honest with people about your story and relate to them in a very human way.

At Summit, we talk about the DNA of influence and I kind of have a picture of a DNA double helix and truth is one strand, relationship is the other. They intertwine together. And it sounds like that’s even how you do this through your show. You invite people to comment, you have callers, you have hosts and things like that to just make sure that those two things are always interacting.

Steve Deace (29:24):
Yes. In previous generations that accepted there was such a thing as absolute truth. How you would have persuasion and an argument in previous generations is we would start with our rival truth claims and then have the evidence to reinforce. And then the last thing we would close with is the personal testimony to make the emotional connection, right? That would be the censure. That’s how we would close the deal. We’re living in an era now where we don’t believe in absolute truth anymore.

So we actually have the paradigm. I believe we have to start with the emotional up here, the testimony. That’s why I talk about my own past so often. And then once you think I can relate to you on your level, this is now when I introduce the objective truth claim. And so I think strategically we have to do it differently in this era than we have in other eras of American culture.

(30:18):
And then I’ve always encouraged my audience to do something I call three dimensional thinking. The first dimension is the foundation. This is a biblical commandment. Know why you believe what you believe, right? Peter says that have a ready defense. And that’s where we get the Greek word apologetics from. So that’s the first dimension.

The second dimension, so we go from foundation to connection. So why do other people believe what they believe? The world that’s around me. Other people that have what may be different or aberrant views of historical Christianity, where do those come from? People that just openly oppose or don’t believe in Christianity. Where do those views come from? Because if I don’t know the people that I’m called to interact with, I’m never going to get to know them. So that’s the connection.

The third stage is where we get to persuasion. Know why other people believe what they believe about what we believe. Yes. On a basic theological notion, we know the reason people don’t know Christ is they don’t want to. They’re sinners. They don’t want to repent, such as once we’re all of us. That’s the meta theme, but how does that apply to each individual? What justification do they use?

For example, here’s something you may not know is that a woman abused by somebody in the church and she reported it and the church didn’t stand up for her but defended the elder or the man in good standing instead. And you see what I’m saying? This is where we get to empathy. This is where we get to persuasion. This is where we actually make a relational connection. The God of the universe so desired relationship with us that he put himself into human form. He emptied his bowels the way we do, emptied his bladder the way we do.

(32:02):
He slept, he hungered, he thirsted the way that he bled the way that we do. Think about those things in order to make that connection with us, he became as we are. And that’s where we need to emulate that in how we make connections with other people.

Your testimony is not something to hide away, but to me it’s something to parade in front and to let people know, “Hey, I have been where you are at. I know what I’m talking about. I may be wrong. I’m not always right, but this isn’t just a lecture. I’ve suffered. I’ve made mistakes. Some of them even worse than the ones you’re thinking about making.”

Dr. Jeff Myers (32:40):
So you’re right there with the three dimensions again, foundation, connection, persuasion. And begin with your story because it’s your story and that vulnerability then, sometimes it earns return vulnerability so that vulnerability can kind of scaffold.

Steve, this may seem like a sharp turn here, but one thing that I want everybody to know who’s watching this right now is that you’ve written a book called Nefarious Plot that is kind of like screw tape letters. Everybody watching this, listening to this is a fan of C.S. Lewis. In fact, we put quotes online.

We don’t know who said it, have C.S. Lewis says it. Screwtape Letters. So this book, Nefarious Plot, is like Screwtape Letters on steroids because you’re just talking about how Satan would tempt a man, but how he would tempt a whole culture and try to take it down. And then you recently did a novella that follows along with that, A Nefarious Carol.

(33:53):
But just give us a little bit of, we’ve got the book, people will be able to see it, people will know about that, but I want to hear what some of that plot is because I just have this sense that a lot of it is unfolding in real time.

Steve Deace (34:11):
I was in Washington DC doing PR for another book and I’m in the shower getting ready to go do this interview and it’s one of the few places where my phone’s not ringing and I’m not answering it or I’m not being a dad so I can think clearly and this line just comes to me out of nowhere. This book is dedicated to all the useful idiots out there, especially useful idiots that did know you were being used all this time, for you proved to be the most useful idiots of them all, Lord Nefarious. Wow.

And mustard seed, it’s the dedication of the book. I went and did the interview. I get back to my hotel room that night and I just started writing and I realized that I’m doing a level below what Clyde Staples Lewis was capable of, my own knockoff cover band version, but this is a corporate version of a Screwtape Letters.

(35:04):
Instead of an individual, an entire culture taken down by a demon general named Lord Nefarius who was tasked by the devil over a hundred years ago with taking down the United States of America because next to the church, now I’m not saying it’s a close second, it’s space bar, space bar, space bar, okay? But next to the church in the last century, America has been more of an impediment to his world plans than any other human endeavor on this planet.

If you can’t get rid of the church, get rid of the knockoff, get rid of America. And so Nefarious was tasked with this and in this book, he connects the backstory of heaven He seeks to answer questions that we have, which is, well, if they know they lose, why do they keep fighting anyway? He answers all of these questions in brutal honesty and at times it is brutal. I created him as a compilation of Heath Ledger’s joker and J.R. Ewing.

(35:59):
So as a charming anti-hero to bring you in, to draw you in. And then once you’re in, the nihilism begins once you’re drawn in and you’re trapped. And he rips the veil, pardon the pun, behind hell, how it operates the way it thinks. And he puts this all into writing and connects dots, he names historical figures, movements, contemporary ones, how he did it to America.

He doesn’t pull any punches and he does it because he wants to, this is not the handlebar mustache villain. Now that you’re trapped, let me tell you my plan. This is the guy, he’s already scored the touchdown, brother. He’s doing the chicken dance. He’s spiking the ball. Your mama, it’s in your face. The fact that you’ll just sit there and be numb to it and won’t even know how to process it is how he will convince his master the devil that the plan has been successful.

(36:52):
And he lays this all out in great detail in a nefarious plot. And last year we thought it would be fun to start going back through the book again on my show. I got to tell you, it’s not fun because so many of the things that are in that book from five years ago are America right now that it kind of freaks me out a little bit.

(37:11):
And then earlier this year I got the idea to write a sequel book and it’s a novella, so it’s meant to be read in a short setting and it’s called A Nefarious Carol and this one is patterned after Dickens a Christmas Carol. And now that nefarious has been successful, the devil himself comes out with America taken down. He wants to use it now as the launching pad for the final stage of his master plan that the antichrist will come from America.

Before that to be successful, he needs a woman to give himself to her of her own free will or the ritual will not be successful. He can’t impose on her, he can’t assault her, he can’t lie to her. He has to legitimately woo her to his side. And in the course of one night, a scared young woman escaping a drug dealing boyfriend in a dysfunctional Christian home, she’s all alone with no money to her name in this cash out- of-pocket motel and it’s setting that the enemy comes to her and attempts to woo her into following him.

(38:08):
And the confrontation that takes place in this room is essentially what takes place in the hearts of each and every one of us when the enemy comes to us depending on the form that he takes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (38:19):
So Nefarious Plot, Nefarious Carol, and I know a lot of people are going to be wanting to look at that. I’d like to close our conversation, Steve, with this question, because I know so many of the young people we work with at Summit Ministries, they’re 16 to 25. They’re in that stage where they find these counterfeit worldviews very attractive and yet they do feel that they want to make a difference. I mean, if you could just give them a couple of sentences that would brace them up, what would you say?

Steve Deace (38:53):
To the young men, I would say embrace risk, embrace maturity, step into your ordained roles. It doesn’t mean don’t be prudent, but you’re never really ready and there’s really never enough money to be a husband and a father. I make 10 times what I made when my wife made me and I still feel like I’m in the poor house most of the time. Okay. Stop delaying manhood. Step into your masculine destiny is what I would say uniquely to the men.

And to either gender that is watching right now, what I would say is don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to be bold. I think one of the reasons we fall into these counterfeit worldviews, brother, is that we’re not sure what we believe stands up against them. Earlier in my career, I did over 50 appearances as a conservative contributor on MSNBC, which is like being thrown to the wall essentially.

(40:01):
And one of the reasons I did it is because I needed to know, does the other side of this argument know something I don’t know? What am I missing here? Because this seems pretty obvious to me. And what I found was there isn’t anything else. That’s why they call you names. They call you names in the hope that will cause you to either be unpersoned as Orwell described it by the culture, or will cause you as an individual to shut down and surrender now before it’s too late.

When you get past the name calling, there’s no other there, there. There’s no secret sauce. There’s no secret formula that you don’t know. There’s no secret teaching or revelation that they’re going to drop on. You’re going to be like, “Oh, snap. I didn’t see that coming.” Nope. They come out of the bullpen with a 98 mile an hour fastball, but this Mariano Rivera doesn’t have a cutter, doesn’t have a curve, doesn’t have a change up.

(40:53):
There’s no other pitch. And so if you can stand there and put up with the name calling and once they punch themselves out, you can rope-a-dope them. There’s not an off speed pitch left. And when it gets down to real logic and real information and real truth, that’s when you’re the home team.

Dr. Jeff Myers (41:12):
Wow. So don’t fear if you could get past the name calling, then you got it. It just reminds me that what seems like the most common command in the Bible is, “Do not fear.”

Steve Deace (41:26):
Yeah. At least it’s one of them.

Dr. Jeff Myers (41:27):
If we could just remember that. Steve Deace, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate your coming on the Dr. Jeff Show.

Steve Deace (41:35):
You bet, brother. Thank you guys for having me very much. Really appreciate it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (41:38):
I loved our conversation with Steve Deace from Blaze TV. Let me tell you something. If we remember nothing else from this, remember this, do not fear. If you can get past the name calling people’s attempts to shame you, you can be a person who makes an enduring difference in the world. Thanks for joining me on The Dr. Jeff Show.

Ryan Dobson (42:02):
Hi, everyone. I’m Ryan Dobson from the Rebel Parenting Podcast. When my parents, Jim and Shirley Dobson chose the Summit Worldview Conference for me when I was 17, who knew what an impact that would have on my life? It changed me so dramatically I’ve been back every single summer for 34 years.

Summit Worldview Conference challenges students to think deeper about their convictions and faith by interacting with today’s top worldview leaders and apologists. This summer, your student can attend an in-person camp, that’s right, in person in three states, Arizona, South Carolina, and Florida, or they can attend Summit’s amazing virtual conference. You can change the trajectory of your students’ life forever by choosing Summit Ministries Worldview Conference today. Learn more by clicking the link in the show notes.